CNNMoney expanding content areas, video as it loses Fortune and Money

CNNMoney.com will introduce major changes to its website on Sunday that are the result of its parent company spinning off its magazine operation into a separate entity.

The changes include two new sections covering luxury and media news, an expanded tech news section and an increased emphasis on digital video. Two Flipboard magazines, one on cybersecurity and one on the future of media featuring the work of Brian Stelter, will also be launched.

CNNMoney began in 2001, and for more than a decade its site has include content from the Time Inc. magazines Fortune and Money as well as content from its own staff. As part of the split, however, Fortune and Money are launching their own sites on Sunday. The buttons at the top of CNNMoney.com for Fortune and Money content will disappear on that day.

“Our main idea is to build on what we have created and add to it and make it bigger and better and more widely read,” said Lex Haris, executive editor of CNNMoney, in a telephone interview Friday with Talking Biz News. Haris has been with CNNMoney since its launch in 2001. Previously, he served as a senior editor at Money and executive editor of Individual Investor magazine.

One of the changes at CNNMoney is the merger of the tech news team from CNN.com with the CNNMoney tech news team. CNNMoney now has a staff of about 75 people, with journalists in New York, Hong Kong, London and Washington. Among its recent hires is Bloomberg Television’s Cristina Alesci.

“We’re building out a digital video team, and that includes for the first time really combining it with the on air,” said Haris. “What we’re losing in Fortune and Money magazine, we’re going to be more connected to what you see on the CNN broadcast.”

Ed O’Keefe, former editor-in-chief of NowThis News, joined CNN as vice president of CNNMoney and Politics earlier this month. On Friday, O’Keefe called CNNMoney a “start-up in a much larger media organization” and noted how it will expand its distribution.

“We haven’t really emphasized it, but the huge focus moving forward will be social and mobile video,” said O’Keefe. “We want to find new audiences and not just think about web video, but what types of video we can present in new platforms. There are a lot of new opportunities.”

A new mobile app for iPhones will also launch on Sunday, and O’Keefe said CNNMoney is examining a new app for Android phones as well as new distribution systems such as Roku, a streaming video box.

“There is a lot of restructuring and rearranging,” said O’Keefe. “But we are adding more resources in video. We are adding more resources in social.”

The content focus, however, will remain on providing business news that helps people make better decisions about their personal finances.

“You might see some changes in presentation, but one of the things we do strongly is the money news that matter most you,” said Haris. “We have this vision of a reader and a viewer who is really working hard to get ahead. What our site is doing is showing them how all of these business issues affect their lives.

“That’s the core of what we do. The changes you might see is how we present the stories. We want to keep doing real journalism and telling real stories, but we want to be innovative in how we present those stories and engage with the readers.”